In the city of Kano, in northern Nigeria, Hida Ghaddar is an unconventional football coach. At just 27 years old, the young woman of Lebanese origin heads the Breakthrough Football Academy, which she founded two years ago.
But while her goal is to prepare her young talents to play for foreign clubs, she also helps the players stay away from drugs. "Drug addiction and football don't mix. It's one or the other," she told AFP.
Hida Ghaddar has become something of a local celebrity. The only woman in Nigeria to coach an all-male football team, she is challenging the conservative norms of the predominantly Muslim north of the country.
This is not just a football academy. We are here to build something different in order to offer a better life to each of our players," she explains.
Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, has the second-highest drug use rate in the country, according to the National Narcotics Control Board. High unemployment has driven young people in this city of five million to drugs and crime. According to several political scientists, some local politicians are exploiting this crisis to recruit these young people as thugs to intimidate their opponents.
Officially, Kano State's unemployment rate is 7.6%, higher than the national average of 5.3%. But the number of young people in the state who are neither in school, nor employed, nor in training climbs to 12.5%.
"Playing football helps these players avoid all of that," according to Hida Ghaddar. The training sessions are accompanied by a special focus on "nutrition, sleep, hydration, and a healthy lifestyle," explains the coach from the edge of a sandy pitch located in the center of a racetrack.
The passion for football
Born into a Lebanese family of factory owners in Kano – a city that is home to a large Lebanese community, mainly active in the building, trade and confectionery sectors – Hida Ghaddar began playing football at the age of five.
It was at 16, when she moved to Lebanon to pursue her university studies, that she discovered a true passion for the sport. But her dreams of becoming a football star were shattered by four successive knee injuries and five surgeries, forcing her to abandon her career at the age of 18.
She then chose to return to Nigeria to offer young players the opportunities she herself never had. "I lived here in Kano for 16 years and I felt at home here," explains Hida Ghaddar. She initially doubted the success of her academy project, given the lack of prominent female football role models in the city, where cultural norms discourage most women from playing sports.
But the project worked. From just six at the start, the number of students quickly climbed to 63. "I was afraid of everything... of being a woman wearing a hijab, of coming to the racecourse, of training here on the sand in front of men," says Hida Ghaddar with a smile.
The young coach provides the players with football kits and an allowance to help them focus on the sport. They are also enrolled in secondary schools and attend English classes twice a week.
Those who do not wish to pursue higher education work in the confectionery and soda factories owned by the coach's family, while dedicating themselves to football. "These boys are like my family; I feel all kinds of positive emotions when I am with them," the young woman emphasizes.
Ali Mustapha Ahmad Musa is one of Hida Ghaddar's students. He wants to become an international footballer. "We pray and train to achieve our biggest dream: to join foreign clubs in Europe or elsewhere," said the 15-year-old after a training session.
That is also the hope of his coach. "My dream is to see one of my players playing abroad," said Hida Ghaddar.
